Glyn Bindon, founder and Chairman of the Board of Trijicon, Inc., as well as the inventor of several innovative Trijicon products, died September 2, 2003, when his small plane crashed near Palmer, Alaska. Glyn will be missed not only for his technological genius and business acumen, but for his warmth, his dedication to fairness and honesty, and for his unquestioned integrity, as well.

Glyn Bindon: The Early Years
Glyn A. J. Bindon was born in 1937 in Pretoria, South Africa and he immigrated to the United States in the mid-1950s where he received a degree in aeronautical engineering from Parks College in 1958. Following his graduation, Glyn worked with a small engineering company in New York state where he developed a powerful shock absorber for the tail hook of the Navy's F-8U Crusader which allowed that aircraft to be used in aircraft carrier operations for the first time. During the 1970s, Glyn moved to Grumman Aerospace as a Cognizant Engineer. In that capacity, he interfaced with NASA during one of the most intense periods of space exploration. He was extremely proud of a valve he designed that was used aboard the lunar module. The valve was called upon to perform far beyond the original design standards during the difficult Apollo13 mission.

In the 1970s, Glyn relocated to Michigan and joined the Ford Motor Company as a product design engineer where his knowledge of fluid dynamics positioned him as a key problem solver in Navistar's struggle with the unit injectors in its (then) new diesel engine series.

The Pioneer of Self Luminous Gunsights
In the 1980s, Glyn was visiting his family in South Africa and met the developer of the Armson OEG gunsight. The designer was attempting to introduce the OEG sight to the American market. The concept whetted his interest, and upon his return home, Glyn began importing those sights. He named his company Armson, Inc., and the Armson sights were his only product from 1981 until 1985. Then, Glyn began developing his own ideas for self-illuminated sights. After obtaining the first "exempt" license from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the Armson OEG, Glyn developed a line of tritium equipped iron sights for handguns. When he was also awarded a difficult-to-procure "exempt" license for those handgun sights, the distinction between his new sights and earlier tritium sights became clear. The "exempt" status also allowed the new tritium sights to be distributed separately from the firearms, themselves. One early success with the night sights was their adoption by the FBI for use on their new auto loading pistols.

Glyn eventually renamed his company "Trijicon, Inc.", and those night sights became the basis for the family-owned and operated company that grew quickly through its constant experimentation with innovative optics that truly pushed the envelope in optic design. Following his success with night sights, Glyn's next product was a reflection of his true inventor's spirit when the Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight (ACOG) was developed contrary to most existing optical theory. Throughout his life, Glyn developed things that (according to the experts) "shouldn't work". The ACOG was one clear example. The combination of the rugged design of the ACOG, along with the integration of an effective fiber optics system, set the ACOG apart from all other rifle scopes. Then, Glyn's discovery of the Bindon Aiming Concept (BAC) drove him to merge fiber optic illumination and magnified optics. The result was that the ACOG permitted the fastest aiming possible while still allowing a magnified view for distance discernment.

During the mid-1990s two of Glyn's optics were adopted as part of the US Special Operations Command SOPMOD M4 Carbine Accessory Kit: the Day Optical Sight 4x32 ACOG (Model TA01NSN), and the RX01NSN Reflex sight. More recently, several US Army combat units and the US Marine Corps have procured the dual illuminated BAC version of the ACOG (Model TA31F) for use in Afghanistan and Iraq, while numerous other Federal Agencies and foreign allies employ various aiming systems developed by Glyn. His products have contributed significantly to our military's combat effectiveness.

We will forever be indebted to Glyn for his creative genius, his innovations and his leadership in founding Trijicon.